When
by Little Witch1
Summary: Sometimes the person you love at fifteen is the one you love at fifty. Sometimes, they're not. A story about growing up. CU. Short chapters.
1. Chapter 1

When

Part I

When they're fifteen, Kagome's friend Yuka gets a crush on a boy in their year. It's all encompassing, the kind of crush that has her blushing when his name is mentioned and stuttering in his presence. Kagome, for her part, is thankful for it. It keeps the heat off her when she's back on Yuka's side of the well, tiring of talking about Inuyasha.

"I'm in love with him," Yuka says softly, when it's just her and Kagome, walking back from milkshakes and burgers with Eri and Ayumi.

"What?" Kagome says.

"I'm in love with Wabisuke," Yuka tells her, a little louder this time.

"Oh."

Kagome smiles and hugs her friend's shoulders, listens to her say all the things she wouldn't in front of the other girls, but all the while a voice whispers inside her head. She can't be in love, Kagome thinks. She's only fifteen; she doesn't even know what love is.

They part ways at the bottom of the shrine steps, and as she waves that's when it hits her: Kagome is only fifteen, too.

* * *

Blanket Disclaimer

I own nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

When

Part II

When they're sixteen they still feel much like they did at fifteen, although this time they're in high school, Kagome having miraculously passed her entrance exams. The uniform changes, and they study more, and Wabisuke is in their class meaning Yuka's face is permanently the colour of Inuyasha's fire rat. Kagome smiles when she sees them from across the classroom, whispering over their English notes. Sometimes there's a lump in her throat; she ignores it.

"I think he's going to ask me out," Yuka says, later, lying on the floor of her room surrounded by fast food wrappers and empty boxes of Pocky. "I can feel it."

"Why don't you, oh I don't know, ask _him_ out?"

"Kagome!"

"It's the twentieth century, Yuka. Girls can ask boys out too."

Yuka rolls over so Kagome can see the sardonic look on her face. "Have you asked out Inuyasha?"

Kagome tries to imagine it: asking Inuyasha to go steady over ramen or while everyone is asleep, which is the only time they ever get to be alone. She tries to imagine going off with him in to the woods, walking hand-in-hand in the blue shade and kissing by a stream.

"I kissed him once," she says thickly.

" _You_ did?" Yuka chirps.

She has a point. Kagome wonders how old she'll be, by the time Inuyasha is willing to make a move.


	3. Chapter 3

When

Part III

When they're seventeen, they don't talk much. Kagome spends most of her time on the opposite side of the well, knee-deep in demon guts now that she's more confident in being able to pass her tests without having to be in class. Months go by without seeing her modern friends, but during exam time and once over winter break, they spy each other. Standing in the crowded hall, Kagome flicks her eyes in Wabisuke's direction; _are you together yet_? Yuka shakes her head; _no_.

The night before she's supposed to go back, Kagome sits in her pink room thinking about love. When she was little she thought it was all goodness and warmth and joy—Souta's baby-soft face, and her father's hugs, and her mother's oden recipe. Now that she's older she knows that love can be hard, and sad, and frustrating; that it can kill, sometimes more than it can save. But it can still be _good_ too, right? Falling in love doesn't have to be crow's feet or obsession or promises to die. It can still be warm when you're grown; it can still make you happy, more than it makes you sad.

Kagome wraps her trembling arms around a pillow and wishes that she knew more; that she wasn't only seventeen. Maybe then she wouldn't want to throw up at the thought of seeing Inuyasha again.

Five hundred years earlier, Sesshomaru starts travelling with them.


	4. Chapter 4

When

Part IV

When they're eighteen, everyone but Kagome is taking cram school. Everyone is figuring out what universities to apply to, and prepping for entrance exams, and living off caffeine. Kagome tells her friends that she's going to work at the shrine for a while, to save up for school. Really, she spends most of her time holding a little girl's hand, a kit on her hip, hoping she won't flunk her final tests. She hopes she'll stay alive long enough to write them.

"How long does that fucking school take?" Inuyasha whines when she tells him that she has one more year. One more set of tests. One more batch of exams.

"Language, half-breed," Sesshomaru says, angling his eyes in Rin's direction.

"Fuck you!"

Sesshomaru hums. Kagome giggles. "It's only one year, Inuyasha. And after that, if we haven't got Naraku by then, I'll spend as much time here as possible. _Months_. I promise."

Inuyasha scoffs and makes for the village, past Shippo and Rin who pull faces at him. He makes one back. Kagome rolls her eyes.

"You're worse than Souta," she says, hefting her bag off the lip of the well. "One day, I'm going to take all your ramen away until you learn some manners."

"A fool's errand," Sesshomaru drawls. "His vulgarity is too ingrained."

"I can hear you, asshole!" Inuyasha shouts.

"This one is aware."

Inuyasha sputters and Kagome laughs, long and loud until suddenly, her bag is gone. Sesshomaru is holding it, wearing what in some circles might be called a smile. It's nice.

"Hey!" she says.

"You are slow enough," he says.

She huffs. "And just when I was starting to like you."

He walks ahead, her ugly yellow bag dangling from his fingers, and something inside her warms. She shakes her head; living two lives must be driving her insane.


	5. Chapter 5

When

Part V

When they're eighteen-and-a-half, Kagome limps through her first set of tests with a hole in her side and a busted knee, curtesy of Naraku's puppet. She gingerly sits across from Yuka in a coffee shop after school, trying to ignore her concern.

"I was helping gramps with some shrine maintenance and I fell," she says without being asked. "I'll be okay."

"You look tired," Yuka says.

"All that studying."

Yuka looks unconvinced, but Kagome can't bring herself to tell her the truth. Not after all these years of lying. How can she tell her that last week she was fighting a half-demon and ran out of arrows? How can she tell her that when Sango was unconscious and Miroku was poisoned, she got hit from behind protecting her kids? How can she describe the look on Sesshomaru's face, as she bled all over his white haori? He wasn't there when she woke up in a derelict hut and she didn't see him until two days after that, when she was in too much pain to sleep. He sat in the doorway, moonlight in his hair, watching her.

"Thank you," she said, "for saving me."

He hummed.

"Where did you go?"

He looked away, shadow swallowing his face until all she could see was the slope of his nose and the curve of his chin. His fingers were clenched; his knee twitched.

"Rin is okay," she said, her heart pounding. "I'm… _I'm_ okay."

The day before her test, he watched her go through the well. She thinks when she goes back he'll still be in that field, waiting.

"Kagome?"

She looks up from her hot chocolate; Yuka is frowning at her. "Sorry," she says.

"I've got a boyfriend," Yuka tells her.

"Wabisuke finally asked?"

Yuka laughs. "God no! That was…I got over that ages ago. I met Kenta at cram school. He wants to go to Tokyo U."

Kagome's stomach lurches and her head feels light; she presses her fingers around her mug until the heat of it starts to burn. She wants to throw up. She wants to run. When did this happen? How did it happen? And if Yuka, sure and serious Yuka, could fall out of love without comment then what does that mean for her?

She shifts in her seat and her side twinges. She already knows.


	6. Chapter 6

When

Part VI

When they're nineteen, Eri goes to Osaka and Ayumi goes abroad to Shanghai. Yuka enrolls at Tokyo U, and Kagome hears that Naraku carved the shards out of Koga's legs. One afternoon, he drops Kohaku's lifeless body at the edge of the village. Sango is inconsolable. Inuyasha rants and raves and claws at trees, and Miroku mutters prayers until his voice goes hoarse. Kagome sits on the shrine steps, cradling Shippo in her lap, watching as Sesshomaru corrals Rin's upset limbs with his single hand. He touches his lips to the top of her head, humming lowly. She stills.

"It's going to happen soon, isn't it?" Kagome says, her skin crawling and her heart pounding and her bones trembling under her veins. "The end."

"Yes," Sesshomaru says in to Rin's hair.

"And you'll be with us?"

He looks at her. That night, she sneaks out of Kaede's and meets him in the woods.

She never thought of standing with Sesshomaru in the dull forest light. She never thought of taking walks with him or holding his hand, but it's so easy to do. She touches the stripes along his wrist and lets him rest his forehead against hers, his breath buffeting her lips in a way that makes her ache. She feels something fall away when he kisses her, leaving her new and bare and ready—for what, she's not entirely sure. For a new life. For a next step. For his mouth on her jaw and throat and shoulder; her hands in his hair and down the back of his haori, tracing his spine. He presses her against a tree and rocks against her, and it's the best thing she's ever felt. Until she bites the lobe of his ear and he moans _her name_.

The next morning Inuyasha stares at her all through breakfast, indiscreetly scenting the air. Kagome's stomach does somersaults. She drinks a scalding cup of tea in one breath, trying to melt the lump in her throat.

"I don't want to see anything, or hear anything, or… _see_ anything," Inuyasha finally says, a little hysterical.

"Uh—" she stutters.

"And you!" he bellows out the door, to where Sesshomaru must be sitting. "If you knock her up before we've killed Naraku, I'll cut off your—"

"Inuyasha! Sit!"

He crashes in to a bowl of rice and really, it could have been worse.

* * *

Author's Note

I'm a bit nervous about this chapter, as I hope it doesn't feel like I've rushed anything. There are many more chapters to come, and you'll get to see how Kagome feels about everything, but for now I figured, they've been travelling together for two years. It's time.


	7. Chapter 7

When

Part VII

When they're nineteen-and-a-half, Kagome misses winter break. She gets snowed in up near Miyako and has to wait it out in a fishing village, bartering with the locals and sleeping in a too-small hut. The kids bounce off the walls. Miroku risks concussion hourly. Inuyasha won't sit next to Sesshomaru and Kagome subdues him until he almost goes through the floor. It's cold, and there is no privacy, and she would sell what's left of her soul for a single chocolate bar.

Thankfully, they also find the second-to-last shard.

But it's not all bad: when the sun is out and the sea wind has died, she and Sesshomaru go for walks in the woods and kiss under the empty trees. They hold hands and they talk, about their departed fathers and the mothers they left behind; about the weight of being the only sibling who remembers what their absent parent sounded like. They talk about education, and travel, and even their favourite foods. Sesshomaru's is dango. Kagome thinks that's the best thing she's ever heard.

"How do you know you love someone?" Kagome asks Yuka when she finally gets to visit her mother, lying in her dark room and whispering over the phone.

"I thought you loved Inuyasha?" Yuka whispers back.

"I did, I…" Kagome bites her lip, tracing her throat where she knows a bite mark is. She shivers, thinking of Sesshomaru's mouth on her skin as he said goodbye. Come back. I'll miss you. "I'm…seeing someone. Not Inuyasha."

Yuka squeals. "Really? Who is it?"

"Inuyasha's brother."

" _Seriously_?"

Kagome rolls over, squashing her face in her pillow. "Yes."

"And you're not sure about him?"

"I just…" She sighs, and rolls over again, and suddenly misses the cramped hut she spent three months in. She couldn't stretch her legs without kicking someone, but she had Sesshomaru's shoulder for a pillow. She had his silk beneath her cheek and his scent in her nose and the steady sound of his breath. It's too quiet here. Even the air makes her chafe. "It doesn't feel the same. And I…don't know…what that means."

"I think," Yuka says softly, "there are different kinds of love."

Kagome nods, not that Yuka can see.

"Kagome, I loved Wabisuke. I know sometimes you didn't believe me, but I _did_. But I didn't know him. Not really. I _know_ Kenta, and that's a different kind of love. I think, it'll last."

Kagome feels her nose prickle. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Yuka laughs suddenly. "I mean, we were only fifteen."

A week later, Inuyasha isn't finished pulling her out of the well before she hugs him. Her feet are still dangling in the dark. He pats her on the head with his free hand, and when her backpack starts to slip he asks if they're done. She laughs; she thinks she finally gets it.


	8. Chapter 8

When

Part VIII

When they're twenty, Rin dies. Sesshomaru takes them to see his mother, and Kagome screams at her when it looks like she won't help because doesn't she know _who Rin is_? Doesn't she know that Rin makes the best flower crowns, or that she hates radish? Doesn't she know that Rin grew two inches last year and her favourite colour is blue? Doesn't she know that Rin is the only human that Jaken likes, and that she hiccups when she laughs, and that she can't die because Kagome won't let her?

Reluctantly, Rin lives.

"You're a funny little human," Sesshomaru's mother says, at midnight, when Kagome sits outside too keyed up to sleep. There are lanterns lit along the edge of the palace, suspended in the air like fireflies, reminding them of where the land stops.

"Thanks," she rasps.

"So passionate. I think you would have forced the Meido stone to work, if it had been unwilling."

"Yep."

Sesshomaru's mother lets out a short laugh. Kagome didn't think she could. "My son has unconventional tastes. This one I may enjoy."

Sesshomaru comes when she's gone, sitting on the steps without his armour or swords. Kagome curls her knees in to her chest. She doesn't look at him.

"I'm still mad at you," she says.

"Understood," he hums.

"What were you thinking? What were you _doing_? All of that, for a goddamn _sword_?"

"I wanted to be strong enough to protect you—to protect _her_."

Kagome laughs wetly. "Yeah."

"But no strength is worth it if it destroys you first."

Her aching throat tightens and her skin itches, and she presses her face in to her knees and feels tears dribble down her legs. She has the fierce urge to kick out like a child.

"You saved her," Sesshomaru says.

She cries harder. " _No_."

"You fought for her. When I couldn't. You saved her."

"Because—" She sniffs. "Because she's _yours_."

He holds her, and she lets him, although she thumps him on the chest with enough purity to make him flinch. _Good_ , she thinks, and hates herself a little but she's only human. And really, he's only a man. They're going to fuck up many more times, and at least this one they fixed. They'll learn from it. She feels his hands tremble around her and knows he already has.

"Kagome," he says, when she's cried out and drifting off to sleep, "she's _ours_."


	9. Chapter 9

When

Part IX

When they're twenty-and-a-half, Kagome is pulled out of a sound sleep a second before a demon named Magatsuhi attacks their camp. He hates her on sight, and swallows Sesshomaru, and if the strap on her quiver would just _stop making her pajama top ride up_ maybe she could concentrate enough to save him. To do something, _anything_ , because he's not allowed to die. Not now. Not when it was too dark to even see his face on last time.

Sesshomaru saves himself, with his new left arm and his new sword, and even though Magatsuhi gets away he's very happy about it.

"I thought we agreed we weren't going to be reckless anymore," she says during a walk the following evening, when everyone has been patched up and they've moved camps. Totosai is with them, going in to raptures over the new sword.

"Did we?" Sesshomaru says, helping her over a log.

"It was implied." They come to a river, the low bank covered in reeds and long grass and little white flowers Rin would love. The air is cold, still on the edge of spring. There's no one else around. She turns to him, "If you die again, I'll kill you."

"That is a very contradictory sentence."

She kisses him, holding his face in her hands and reveling in the feel of his jaw. His skin. The taste of his mouth. Reluctantly, she pulls away.

"You know what I mean," she says.

Taking a deep breath, she steps back and looks him right in the eye. She takes off her top.

"Kagome," he sighs.

She kicks off her boots and wriggles out of her jeans. She peels off her undershirt. She unclasps her bra. She doesn't stop looking at him.

"I feel like you're getting the better end of the deal," she says shakily.

He kisses her hard, shedding his clothes and ripping off her underwear and running his two hands over every inch of her. The ground is hard, and the spring grass is cold, but she doesn't care because all she can feel is him: his claws scraping against her scalp and the hot slide of his skin; his mouth on her breasts, and the weight of him between her legs. It's sweaty and painful and perfect and _god_ , god god god, it's so much better than she imagined.

After, he can't stop touching her. He runs a finger over the star-shaped scar she got from the jewel and draws a path across her belly, to its messier twin. He kisses it. She thinks he wants forgiveness. She never thought he needed it.

"Kagome," he whispers, resting his chin on her hip, "I will succeed where my father failed."

They're not the first human and demon to come together like this. They're not breaking new ground. But in all her travels, she has never met a couple that has lasted. That was old and happy and together, with more than one half-blood child. As strong as he was, Sesshomaru's father couldn't save Inuyasha and Izayoi and himself. Sesshomaru, apparently, is much stronger now. Maybe he's right. Maybe that'll be enough.

Tracing the crescent moon on his brow, she says, "I'll help."


	10. Chapter 10

When

Part X

When they're twenty-one, Kagome invites Yuka out to lunch before the fall semester starts and cries the whole time. She's not sure why.

"Is it Sesshomaru?" Yuka asks, patting her hand.

"No!" Kagome croaks, pushing at her food.

"Is it the sex?"

"What? No!" She blushes, and laughs, and cries harder. The other diners are starting to stare. "How do you even know?"

"I know you. It's practically tattooed on your forehead!" She steals a piece of Kagome's tonkatsu. "Also, I can see the hickey on your chest."

Kagome pushes her food away, launching out of her chair and into Yuka's arms. She hugs her for a long time, feeling every muscle and every bone; she memorizes the smell of her hair.

Two weeks later, she knows exactly why.

It's a sunny afternoon when Naraku comes for them, dodging around their first attacks to grab Kagome and her jewel shards by the throat. Inuyasha, for once, doesn't curse. Out of the corner of her eye she can see that Sesshomaru's a second away from transforming. Kagome watches the sick smile that spreads across Naraku's face as the jewel becomes whole, and can only think one thing: we are so _fucked_.

But they're not. It's hours of bloodied clothes, and widening wind tunnels, and Inuyasha turning the air blue from cursing, but finally her arrow hits the mark. Kagome is incredibly proud that she, who six years earlier couldn't shoot at all, is the one to kill Naraku.

Then, the jewel is purified.

Then, the jewel is wished on.

Then, they go back to the village and find that the well is closed.

"No," Kagome says, scrambling up the vines and jumping in again. And again. And again and again until she bangs her elbow and skins her knee and Sesshomaru has to hold her to keep from jumping again. Her ears are ringing.

"I'm sorry, Kagome," Sango says.

"It'll be all right, Lady Kagome," Miroku soothes.

"Yeah Kagome, it'll…he's right, you'll…you'll be okay," Inuyasha stutters.

"We'll take care of you!" Rin declares.

"We love you!" Shippo crows.

"Kagome," Sesshomaru rumbles. She looks up at him; her head feels heavy. "We'll go to the village."

"And do what?" she asks hoarsely.

There's movement at the edge of her vision, light rippling through the folds of Sango's kimono, and her stomach jumps as she realises how threadbare it is. Inuyasha's face is thinner. Shippo is getting so tall. Rin, thirteen and getting gawky, looks nothing like the little girl she first met. So much time has passed; she wonders why she never _really_ noticed before.

"Stay," Sesshomaru says.

It's not a proposal, at least not the kind she used to imagine. This isn't a restaurant steeped in candlelight or a beach at sunrise; there won't be champagne or dancing or a fat diamond ring. Instead it's just their family, bruised and beyond the well, and maybe that's better. They don't need all that stuff anyway; they're already raising two kids. Somehow, they skipped over the fairy tale and landed on something real.

"Okay," she says.

That night, she tells him she loves him. He says it back.

* * *

Author's Note

Uh…long time no see. I am so sorry for how long this took. Real life got in the way, and I rewrote the end probably a half-dozen times, and while I'm not completely happy with it I thought it was time to post. There will be one more chapter after this. Thank you, to all of you still reading!


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